How To Achieve Cut-Through Status
There’s a concept in brand marketing called “cut-through”.
As you might imagine, this refers to having a presence that allows your brand to stand out and be noticed among a sea of information.
A brand with cut-through has a distinctive quality. It stands apart from the crowd. It has something noteworthy to say. It is worth paying attention to.
Needless to say that having cut-though is a highly desirable (let’s be honest, essential) quality for a brand to have. Now more so than ever given the sheer volume of competing demands on our time and attention.
The principles of cut-through can also be applied to new product concepts; to new innovations; to new startup ideas.
Ask yourself some foundational questions
How might I make my new product distinctive?
How might I help my new idea stand apart from the crowd?
How might I make sure people pay attention to my new startup?
Achieving cut-through for your new product or idea should be top of your list of priorities when you start out. It’s a key pillar to increase your chances of success.
Doing so will ensure that your endeavours are making a meaningful contribution rather than just adding to the clutter. People will be able to choose a noticeably better option than what else is available to them. A consumer’s problem will no longer seem insurmountable. You will materially improve upon what is already available and consumers will very likely thank you for it by choosing your product.
Conversely, not having cut-through would leave you as just another face in the crowd, another source of noise to filter, another check box to skip over. There aren’t too many people who would choose that path.
Choose to have cut-through instead; stand out, get noticed, be relevant.
How might you achieve this elusive cut-through?
Consumer opinion can be fickle and there is no magic bullet that will guarantee you will achieve cut-through. There are however, important steps you can take to dramatically improve your chances of achieving the cut-through you are looking for.
Your goal is to develop your product or idea so that it is distinctive and will stand out in the market for the right reasons. It should be something that is substantially better (and ideally, unique) from what else is available. It should surprise, impress or delight consumers so they pay attention. It should make people’s lives better for having access to it.
List down as many answers as you can against the following five questions:
- What are the strengths of my product / idea that people should know about?
- Which competitors do I admire and why?
- What are the current conventions (for features, benefits, design etc) of the category or market that my product / idea will compete in? What do a majority of competitors already do? What do consumers ‘expect’?
- How is my product / idea different compared to what is currently available?
- How is my product / idea better than what is currently available?
You’ll notice that the first question is focused on what your product or idea is great at; the second on what’s great about your competitors; while questions 3–5 are designed to place your product or idea in a competitive context and spot opportunities to stand out.
Figure out what’s ownable and defensible
The next step is to use your answers to the five questions to determine what is uniquely ownable and defensible for your product / idea.
Ownable: The features or aspects of your product / idea which you believe to be a particular strengths (your unique credentials)
Defensible: The features or aspects of your product / idea which you believe set you apart from competitors (strengths of your product / idea; the weaknesses of your competitors)
You could plot your responses on an X-Y axis with ownable running horizontal and defensible running vertical. As with any good strategy, your sweet spot will be the top right hand quadrant.
This will give you a good idea of what it is about your product or idea that is most ownable (uniquely yours) and defensible (stacks up against competitive challenges).
This is not a formula for guaranteed success but it is a thorough means to think critically about your product or idea and its competitive landscape. Doing this will help you identify features to make a noise about and amplify; will help you spot opportunities to stand out from the crowd; and figure out how to get your consumers to pay attention to what you’re doing.
If you’re able to develop your product or idea in an objectively ownable and defensible way you’ll stand a much greater chance of achieving the cut-through that could fuel greater success.
This story is published in The Startup, Medium’s largest entrepreneurship publication followed by +417,678 people.
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